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Scrat
Scrat (also known as "The Scrat" and "Squeak Attack") is an acorn-obsessed saber-toothed squirrel, one of the main characters in the Ice Age film series, and the main protagonist in the shorts, Gone Nutty, and No Time For Nuts. Scrat is commonly shown in scenes as a comic relief character, involving the gang, but never interacts with them, directly with a few exceptions. He appears in all three films, as well as his own short films, "Gone Nutty" and "No Time For Nuts" and has also made a cameo appearance in Sid's short, "Surviving Sid." He usually has his own stories in the film, independent of the main plot, which are parallel with the journeys of the other main characters simply by chance, making the other characters meet him occasionally. Although not fully part of the gang, Scrat has proven to be enormously successful and has become a breakthrough character of the series. He is voiced by Chris Wedge. Appearance and personality Scrat is a crossover of a squirrel and a rat (hence the name Sc-rat), is small and has brownish fur. He has a pointed jaw like a rat and a body similar to a squirrel. Scrat also has small saber-teeth similar to a saber-tooth tiger and a large football shapped bushy tail about as big as his body. Scrat is always seen chasing his acorn. Once succeeded, he usually hugs it, buries it or pretends to eat it. This doesn't last for long as he always loses it. Scrat is usually a glutton for punishment, having to risk his life to get his nut back. He was struck by lightning, chased by avalanches, got into fights with piranhas and Sid (In the first film after the dodo bird fight). Scrat is also nutty when it comes to his acorn. In a special feature in the second film's DVD, his name has been stated to be a mix of the words "squirrel" and "rat", his species allegedly believed to have been a common ancestor of both. In the Ice Age DVD commentary, he is referred to as "The Scrat" by Directors Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha. Roles in the series Movies Scrat is shown in the first film, naively making his way through the ice age with his only possession: One single acorn. He tried to bury it into the snow, but with little success, as the snow itself was frozen solid. With enough force, he stomped down on it, causing the ice around it to crack. This began a chain reaction, which cracked more and more ice, until an entire glacier came crashing down, nearly smashing Scrat. However, Scrat escaped, only to be stepped on by masses of migrating animals. Eventually, Scrat would make his way to a tree and try to bury his acorn there, but inevitably would use it as a lightning rod by mistake. As time went on, Scrat unknowingly followed Manfred and the others up north, getting flung into the sky, sliding through ice slides, and all other forms of mishaps. Scrat is always seen chasing his acorn. Once succeeded, he usually hugs it, buries it, or pretends to eat it. At some point after Scrat's travels up north, he stockpiled many acorns into a tree stump, but mistakenly stocked them too tight, which caused them to shoot out of the stump and into the sky, taking poor Scrat with them and eventually, one would jet back down to Earth with the impact of a guided missile, causing the land beneath to rupture. This began the continents to drift apart, leaving Scrat stranded on a single patch of land with nothing but an empty acorn shell. By the second film, Scrat made his way to a great glacier and yanked out his beloved acorn from the side. This let loose a stream of water, evidence that the current ice age was ending. Scrat hastily tried to plug the holes in the ice back in, but rather ended up being shot out from the glacier's side and falling down a long way down, until he hit solid ice, and was sent through the icy slide when a young Platybelodon slid through there. Scrat eventually was close to retrieving his acorn when he saw it under the icy surface of a lake. He tried to get it back by stomping on the surface, but ended up under the ice. He had lost it when it ended up above him, and he remained on the lower levels of the ice. Eventually, he would get his cherished acorn back, having battled piranhas and baby vultures, being stomped out of a nest, scaling ice walls, and at last, reaching his cherished acorn. It is revealed in the second film that Scrat is a professional at some kind of ice age martial art. This is demonstrated when he is attacked by the aforementioned piranhas and one of them attempts to eat his adored acorn, and then again, at the end when he is resuscitated by Sid. Warning signs that Scrat is about to perform this martial art appear in the form of slitted eyes and a loud war cry. As Scrat had his acorn with him at one point after being stomped out of the nest, he had little time to regroup with it, as the great ice dam behind him came crashing down, sending he and his acorn helplessly drifting through massive walls of water in a nest. Finally, Scrat had reached one of the walls, that he was floating near, and began to climb it, using his acorn as a pickax, but rather ended up diverting the waters, that had flooded the valley when the acorn had weakened the ice and broken through it, sending Scrat, his acorn and all of the water away. Scrat saved the animals, but died in the process. Eventually, Scrat made his way to Nut Heaven, a heaven for squirrels, where he was among many acorns and was about to approach a giant, golden acorn, but he was brought back to life on Earth when Sid performed CPR on him. Scrat, after waking up, realized that Sid had taken him from his heavenly acorn and attacked him in a frenzy. As Scrat comes to, the golden gates of Nut Heaven are briefly portrayed as a light at the end of a long dark tunnel. This is also expressed by a hysterical Eddie in a much earlier scene ("Crash! Don't go into the light!"). In the third film, Scrat encounters Scratte, a female saber-toothed squirrel, whom he competes with over his acorn, and is instantly smitten. However, after numerous conflicts, the two fall in love, only for Scrat to tire of her finicky nature and return to his old ways. After another battle between the two, Scrat is left the loser; he is stranded on the surface, while Scratte is left in the underground jungle of the dinosaurs with Scrat's acorn, Scrat screams in frustration, having lost both his acorn and Scratte. Though he possibly can retrieve his acorn once again by going back to the dinosaur world where he had fallen when he was in a bubble. Also Scrat was seen on the Ice Age 4 poster and had his acorn. It has been confirmed that Scrat will appear in the fourth film with Chris Wedge reprising his role.Ice Age: Continental Drift at the Internet Movie Database At some point after the Ice Age films (as shown in the epilogue of the first movie), Scrat was frozen, while in pursuit of his acorn and thawed out 20,000 years later on a tropical island. However, he lost his nut, presumebly forever. Scrat took his anger out on a nearby palm tree and was hit on the head by a coconut, which more than compensates for 20,000 years and a lost acorn. Shorts Scrat was also the main character in two short films. In the first, entitled Gone Nutty, he loses his meticulously-organized collection of acorns in a catastrophic chain of events. By ramming his acorn into the hole in the exact middle of the collection, he shatters the pile and, incidentally, the continent and accidentally starts continental drift. In the second, No Time For Nuts, he finds a time machine left by an unfortunate time-traveler, and visits a number of historical events. He is eventually trapped in a future when acorn trees have gone extinct, but somehow manages to return to the series' time period. Scrat also had a cameo in the short film Surviving Sid that was significant to the plot. Games Scrat is the main character in the Ice Age 2: The Meltdown video game. He's also playable in the other two games based on the series, though, in the Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs game, he and Scratte appear as an interlude, but still playable. List of Ordeals and Injuries Scrat is probably the most hardy of the characters. He gets tortured a lot but rarely has any bruises, scratches, or permanent body damage. Ice Age (2002) *Falls from a very high point in the beginning *Gets stepped on by creatures weighing tons *Gets struck by lightning at the top of a tree, when he tried to bury his acorn. *Gets flicked really high in the air by Diego *Runs into ice wall *Frozen in ice for 20,000 years *Rolls down a hill, gathering snow, forming a snowball Ice Age 2 (2006) *Gets filled with water and inflates like a balloon *Gets his head flattened by a cut-out piece of ice *Fights a school of piranhas *Gets beaten by a condor and is thrown out of her nest *Nearly split in half when the dam breaks *Falls into a chasm *Almost drowns. *Hit by a Platybelodon on a water slide. Ice Age 3 (2009) *Falls off a cliff and gets trampled by Manny *Falls off another cliff *Gets crushed by a tree *Has his chest hair torn off by Scratte *Almost falls into a volcano *Gets attacked by Scratte while dancing the tango *Falls from a great height in the Ice Age world to the Dino World, after being trapped in a bubble *Gets shot up into the air by a rocket with Scratte (he pulls the acorn from Scratte's hands) *Sticks to a tree Controversy The origin of Scrat is disputed. Cartoon designer Ivy Supersonic claims she created the character in 1999, after seeing a squirrel-rat hybrid in New York City's Central Park. She called her character "Sqrat" and says she presented the idea to 20th Century Fox movie executives. A CNN report by Jeanie Moos of Ivy's discovery was aired in 2000, two years before Ice Age went into development. Supersonic claims the studio's own documents actually identified the character in "Ice Age" as "Sqrat", though her creation was not sabre-toothed.http://ivysmedia.com/scrat/ Ivy Supersonic was offered a $300,000 settlement by Fox Studios. She turned it down and subsequently lost in court. The case is currently in appeal (Case # 04401 Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, NYC). She still has hopes of receiving damages for her claimed infringement. Supersonic did win a partial Summary Judgement from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in a reverse suit, Fox Film Corporation v. Ivy Silberstein (her real name), in which Fox had tried to prevent her from registrating the trade mark "SQRAT".http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-91156005-OPP-21.pdf Scrat in popular culture *Scrat appeared in a Family Guy episode (Sibling Rivalry, episode #72) as a gag. *Scrat also appears in The Simpsons episode "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind" drawn 2D. Groundskeeper Willie kicked Scrat for taking his acorn. *Scrat is also considered as the mascot for 20th Century Fox, the distributor of the ''Ice Age'' trilogy. *In an episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series, Retro turns a squirrel into a saber-toothed squirrel and Pleakley (suffering from Retro's power) makes reference to a saber-tooth squirrel, stating he has never heard of one before. *In the video game Whiplash, Spanx the Long-tailed Weasel is questioned by Raymond about what kind of animal he is, with Raymond later exclaiming "I know, you're a scrat!" *In the video game, Crysis Warhead, an easter egg in an ice tunnel features Scrat reaching for his beloved acorn, frozen in an ice wall. Image gallery SxS___The_kiss_by_mrsmidna.jpg|Scrat and Scratte kiss. Scrat.jpg|Scrat in Ice Age: The Meltdown. Scrat-familyguy.jpg|Scrat vs. Peter. Scrat.jpg|Scrat in Ice Age 2. Scratte_with_Scrat.jpg|Scratte about the rip the fur off Scrat. SxS The kiss by mrsmidna.jpg|Scrat and Scratte kiss. References Category:Characters in Ice Age Category:Characters in Ice Age: The Meltdown Category:Characters in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Category:Characters in Ice Age: Continental Drift Category:Characters in Surviving Sid Category:Mammals Category:Squirrels Category:Main character Category:Male